Most presidents who earned re-election became consumed by war, scandal or strife with Capitol Hill

Scary to contemplate how bad a second Obama term will be. The key point of this article is that despite a horrible second term, FDR was able to hold onto his coalition and be elected to a third and fourth term.

by John Steele Gordon

Barack Obama brings to 16 the number of presidents elected to a second term. The total is 18 if you include Theodore Roosevelt and Harry Truman, who were elected only once but had served nearly four years of a predecessor’s term. Mr. Obama would be well advised to consider the history of these second terms. Its message is to beware of interpreting re-election as an invitation to overreach.

The considerable majority of second terms were far less successful than the first. Some were disastrous. Only James Monroe, Andrew Jackson and Theodore Roosevelt got through it with their reputations intact or enhanced. Roosevelt won the Nobel Peace Prize in his second term for negotiating the end of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905.

Even George Washington, almost an American saint in his lifetime, was savagely criticized in his second term. He caused outrage by signing the Jay Treaty, which was ratified in 1796. This trade agreement with Britain enraged Jeffersonians, who favored France in European squabbles and thought the treaty bolstered the rival Federalists.

Abraham Lincoln and William McKinley were assassinated only six weeks and six months into their second terms. The only other presidential second term to end prematurely was Richard Nixon’s.

But consider this when thinking of Nixon’s Watergate disgrace: Harry Truman, after firing the insubordinate but revered Gen. Douglas MacArthur and failing to win the stalemated Korean War, was so unpopular by the last year of his presidency that his approval rating sank as low as 22%, lower than Nixon’s when he resigned (24%).

Ronald Reagan became ensnared in the Iran-Contra scandal in his second term and Bill Clinton was impeached (but not convicted) for perjury and obstruction of justice in the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Ulysses Grant’s second term was mired in even worse scandals than those that plagued his first. Grant himself was honest, but he was notably loyal to his friends, who often were not.

Grant’s personal secretary, Orville Babcock, was deeply corrupt and involved in the so-called whiskey ring, where a group of federal officials connived with distilleries to siphon millions of dollars in federal liquor taxes. Babcock was tried for his part in the scandal and Grant gave a deposition at the trial, the only time a sitting president has done so in a criminal proceeding. Given that a deep recession had started only six months after Grant’s second inauguration (an economic decline that would last six years), it isn’t surprising that Grant became so unpopular.

Thomas Jefferson’s first term, marked by the Louisiana Purchase, had been a great success and he was easily re-elected. But in his second term he initiated one of the most bizarre policies in American (or, indeed, world) history and paid a terrible political price.

Both Britain and France had been harassing American merchant ships, seizing them and, in the case of Britain, impressing sailors into the Royal Navy. Hoping to force Britain and France to honor American rights, Jefferson pushed the Embargo Act through Congress in 1807. It forbade trade with the European powers and the U.S. Navy was deployed to, in effect, blockade American ports.

The act was very unpopular in all of the country’s port cities. But it was especially so in New England, where shipping and shipbuilding were the largest industries. Talk of secession rose as New England’s economy fell into a deep depression. [………]

Franklin Roosevelt also politically overstepped in his second term. Triumphantly re-elected in 1936 but frustrated that much of his economic policy had been stymied by the Supreme Court, FDR proposed to “pack” the court by appointing an extra justice for every justice on the bench who was over age 70½. Roosevelt pushed hard for the bill, even giving one of his fireside chats about it in March 1937. But the bill was seen as tampering with the fundamental constitutional balance among the three branches of government.

Without public support, Roosevelt could not push the bill through Congress, even though both houses had huge Democratic majorities. When the recovery stalled later that year and the economy began to sink back into depression, Roosevelt’s popularity nose-dived. Still, his coalition secured his third and fourth terms, and success in wartime revived his reputation.

Perhaps the saddest second term was Woodrow Wilson’s. The income tax, the Federal Reserve and the Clayton Antitrust Act were passed in his first administration. Narrowly re-elected in 1916 on the slogan “He kept us out of war,” Wilson asked for a declaration of war only a month into his second term. When the war was won, Wilson sailed for Europe in December 1918 to personally negotiate the peace treaty. He was away for almost seven months (with one brief return), by far the longest time a sitting president has been out of the country.

[……….]

Instead he went on a countrywide speaking tour to build public support for the treaty and get the necessary two-thirds vote in the Senate. The effort proved too much for him and he collapsed in September 1919, while in Pueblo, Colo. A week later a serious stroke left him partially paralyzed and blind in one eye.

His wife, Ellen, essentially became the acting president, shielding him from his cabinet and even the vice president, deciding what he would deal with and what would be left to others. Wilson recovered enough to be able to walk with a cane, but his old vigor was gone. He was a wrecked man.

Second terms are hazardous affairs at best. But no modern president is likely to suffer the humiliation that James Madison experienced in 1814 during his second term. That was when the British invaded the country and burned the nation’s capital.

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160 Responses to “Most presidents who earned re-election became consumed by war, scandal or strife with Capitol Hill” ( jump to bottom )

Thank God Obama won’t be able to run for a Third Term, but will he pass his Presidency off to Joe the Biden? That isn’t a trivial question, because Biden is even more incompetant than Obama. The American people seem to have accepted that a Less is More approach to the economy is acceptable, so saying that the economy will be in the shitter in 2016 is no guarantee that Biden won;’t be elected President. We are in the twilight of America, and nothing is impossible except getting out from under our debt.

Thank God Obama won’t be able to run for a Third Term, but will he pass his Presidency off to Joe the Biden? That isn’t a trivial question, because Biden is even more incompetant than Obama. The American people seem to have accepted that a Less is More approach to the economy is acceptable, so saying that the economy will be in the shitter in 2016 is no guarantee that Biden won;’t be elected President. We are in the twilight of America, and nothing is impossible except getting out from under our debt.

“Nothing is impossibe” used to be an expression of optimism, now it’s quite the opposite. Change!

The blue-chip measure has fallen in five of the six trading sessions since Election Day, shedding 5.1% in that time frame. On Wednesday, the Nasdaq Composite fell 37.08 points, or 1.3%, to 2846.81, its lowest closing level since June 25. As recently as mid-September, the Nasdaq was up 22% on the year and trading at 12-year highs. Since hitting a 52-week high on Sept. 14, it has tumbled 11%, including a 5.5% slide since the election on Nov. 6.

You can’t get a Constitutional Amendment through our divided Congress, let alone get the requisit number of States to sign onto it. I am not worried about that in the least. Oh, no doubt Obama would like to do it, and the Democrats would go along in a heartbeat, but th eGOP controls something like 33 of the State Houses in America today. A Constitutional Amendment isn’t happening.

Teh Ebil Rich are pulling their money out of the stock market in preparation ofor Capital Gains tax to go up next year. I would be too, if I had any money in the market. Likewise, the market is just getting ready for the next round of recession that is coming courtesy of those tax increases. Obama will have his tax increases, though. He is holding the entire economy hostage to them. Republicans need to be playing offense against this evil motherfucker, but I am convinced that the Republican Mandarins are quite content to b the Loyal Opposition as long as they get invited to the right parties in Washington. That is part of our problem.

That’s Dorian’s solution, though I agree it is generally a good Idea. Thomas Jefferson said:

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.

Time for some tyrant’s blood, because the tree of liberty has grown weak and sickly in America. Sadly, I don’t think that will come about until the current crop of tyrants have crashed the American economy and plunged us into a new Dark Age.

How much will Barack Obama pay to keep details of Janet Napolitano’s discrimination against straight male agents at the Department of Homeland Security a secret? $175,000. How much will Obama pay to keep details of Napolitano’s hand-picked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) ex-Chief of Staff Suzanne Barr’s sexual harassment of dozens of male agents a secret? $175,000. DebbieSchlussel.com has learned that today the US government agreed to settle the lawsuit filed by James T. Hayes, the Department of Homeland Security’s top New York cop, for $175,000. A court filing, posted below, just made announces the amount.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) confirmed Thursday that she will seek the chairmanship of the Senate Budget Committee next year but told The Hill that she cannot commit to doing a budget.

This opens up the possibility that Senate Democrats will avoiding passing a budget resolution for the fourth year in a row.

The last time the Senate passed a standalone budget resolution was in 2009.

That alone should have cost the Democrats the Senate, but the Republicans inexplicably didn’t run against that. I am convinced that the top brass in the Republican Party are completely satisfied to be the Opposition Party a long as they don’t have to be too strenuous about their opposition and are still invitedto all the right parties in Washington.

Alot of people we know who voted for 0 will be in real financial trouble from his policies before we are. Don’t get me wrong, he’ll screw us all he can but alot of the sheeple are going to suffer from another helping of 0.

When a friend of mine said that he thought the financially troubled Khawam sisters, Kelley and Natalie Khawam, were spies for Lebanon and the Arab world, I originally expressed skepticism. I believed that these twin sisters with obvious twin nose jobs were merely bimbo gold diggers in slutty outfits, who used their Delilah ways to first nab rich husbands, and then nab idiotic top American generals to participate in Lifetime-Channel-worthy bitter child custody disputes. But then I learned that Ms. Kelley, who was until this week under the radar, was quietly involved in pushing the agenda of Muslim Arab nations on our nation’s top generals with whom she’d grown close by design. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Ms. Kelley got her hooks into our two top generals in the Middle East, David Petraeus and John Allen. I’m now convinced that my friend, lawyer Gary Welsh of Advance Indiana, who has excellent instincts, was correct.

I’ve long written about the infiltration of Central Command at MacDill Air Base in Tampa by Islamic terrorists. Islamic Jihad founder and convicted Islamic terrorist, Sami Al-Arian, was an instructor on the Middle East to our top generals at MacDill Air Force Base AT THE VERY SAME TIME that he was planning mergers and terrorist attacks in Israel with “the brothers of HAMAS” and while he was bringing Muslim illegal alien Islamic terrorists to the U.S. Al-Arian’s friend and co-conspirator, Ramadan Abdullah Shallah (one of those Al-Arian brought here), who became the Secretary-General of the worldwide Islamic Jihad terrorist group, was also a lecturer at MacDill and also taught our top generals his poisonous views on the Middle East and Israel. FBI and INS agents who investigated Shallah and Al-Arian were alarmed at the influence these two top Islamic terrorists had over CentCom. They were also alarmed to find many books on the inner workings of MacDill in Shallah’s house when they raided it.

@ Rodan:
Funny I said that the morning after. They begin by dictating the health system, then they nationalize the unions (card check?), the military leadership is already jumping at their own shadows. Patraeus, Allen (next?). The Benghazi affair needs to produce fruit and quickly.

At least a dozen trucks carrying tanks, armored vehicles were seen late Thursday moving toward border area, while buses ferried soldiers; Barak asks government to okay reserves call-up ahead of possible ground invasion. IDF reservist: Time to do what must be donehttp://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4306350,00.html

Eactly. Benghazi is a dead end. Not because there isn’t a scandal there. It makes Watergate look like a minor burglary. But the MFM is totally incurious about what happened there. Fox News alone can’t carry the water for the Socialist-Media Complex.

@ Rodan:
Eactly. Benghazi is a dead end. Not because there isn’t a scandal there. It makes Watergate look like a minor burglary. But the MFM is totally incurious about what happened there. Fox News alone can’t carry the water for the Socialist-Media Complex.

I will do a post how the media is the 800 Pound Gorilla in the room. Yes the GOP needs to change some things, but until media bias is addressed, it will only help on the margins.

A House Foreign Affairs hearing on “Benghazi and Beyond” quickly turned into a shouting and accusations forum.

It began when Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) said this: “What is clear is that this administration, including the president himself, has intentionally misinformed, read that LIED, to the American people in the aftermath of this tragedy. Now President Obama has the gall to float the name as possibly secretary of State, the name of the person who is the actual vehicle used to misinform the American people during this crisis.”

Rep. Brad Sherman, a Democrat also from California, called the attacks on Rice “unfair” and leveled that Colin Powell testified that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, because that’s the information that was given to him.

Rohrbacker shot back, going further, intimating that what the White House has done is worse than Watergate.

“This is not simply a cover up of a third-rate burglary,” he alleged. “We have four of our personnel dead, and it is not a McCarthy-era tactic to demand accountability and to demand that American people are not misinformed about it to the point that they don’t know what the threat is.”

Naturally Democrats responded. It began rather timidly and escalated.

“Barack Obama was no more responsible for what happened in Benghazi than George Bush was for Sept. 11th or Ronald Reagan was for the blowing up of U.S. Marines in Beirut,” Rep. Eliot Engle (D-NY) said.

“The stench of hypocrisy that hangs over this city today emanates from this room,” Ackerman said. ”I’ve listened to my colleagues talk about the President of the United States and others in the administration using [the] terms ‘deliberate’, ‘lies’, ‘unmitigated gall’, ‘malfeasance,’ which is malicious and knowing evil-doing, ‘disgust’, ‘coverups’.”

He continued, “If you want to know who is responsible in this town, buy yourself a mirror!”

@ Rodan:
Eactly. Benghazi is a dead end. Not because there isn’t a scandal there. It makes Watergate look like a minor burglary. But the MFM is totally incurious about what happened there. Fox News alone can’t carry the water for the Socialist-Media Complex.

I disagree…money talks and the MSM will follow the viewership when they smell blood…be patient weedhoppa

Ackerman went on to say that Republicans had “the audacity to come here” when the administration requested, for worldwide security, “$440 million more than you guys wanted to provide. And the answer is that you damn didn’t provide it! You REDUCED what the administration asked for to protect these people. Ask not who the guilty party is, it’s you! It is us. It is this committee, and the things that we insist that we need have to cost money.”

Never mind the fact that since the Democrats refused to actually pass a budget, nothing the Republicans did or didn’t do actually made any difference.

I think this Benghazi affair is a crucible; should the ruth not be uncovered, we’ll know that we’ve reached a level of executive opacity heretofore unknown in the United States.

agreed, and what better opportunity would ever present itself?…with Benghazi, all the elements are in place, death and destruction, the highest ranking officials, dereliction, sex, deceit etc…this has to be it, and I think it will be

@ heysoos:
I disagree…money talks and the MSM will follow the viewership when they smell blood…be patient weedhoppa
Not likely. The broadcast networks won’t cross the administration, because they know what can be done to them if they do.
And CNN and MSNBC are dedicated left-wing propadanda outlets already.
That basically leaves Fox News all by itself to cover this…which is exactly what’s happening.

don’t discount the will of the people…they love sex, blood and guts and may surprise you yet…Benghazi is just getting up to speed

agreed, and what better opportunity would ever present itself?…with Benghazi, all the elements are in place, death and destruction, the highest ranking officials, dereliction, sex, deceit etc…this has to be it, and I think it will be

heysoos wrote:
agreed, and what better opportunity would ever present itself?…with Benghazi, all the elements are in place, death and destruction, the highest ranking officials, dereliction, sex, deceit etc…this has to be it, and I think it will be
It’s like the unholy hybrid of a Tom Clancy/Jacqueline Suzanne novel.

@ Rodan:
BO does not represent or speak for everyone, regardless of these phony elections…I’m saying it’s premature to blow Libya off and call it for BO…it’s a long way from there so we should look at as detached as possible, rather than with runaway emotion….it’s NOT done yet and predictions are worthless

It’s sad you joined the military when the Communists were an external enemy. Now they run our country. Who won the Cold war?

Ronald Reagan won the Cold War and there are a lot of people in Eastern Europe who are very thankful. I have a friend who went back to his native Poland for a visit. His little town has a nice new statue of the town’s hero, Ronald Reagan.

@ Rodan:
BO does not represent or speak for everyone, regardless of these phony elections…I’m saying it’s premature to blow Libya off and call it for BO…it’s a long way from there so we should look at as detached as possible, rather than with runaway emotion….it’s NOT done yet and predictions are worthless

@ 100 lobo91: I’ve dealt with the clinically insane. Their noise to reality ratio is just a lot higher. One might weight their opinions if one has the bandwidth but in general one wouldn’t depend on them.

She’s clinically insane.
She may occasionally come up with something accidentally, but she’s still a nut.

agreed…when I think about the personalities of our elected officials I about stroke…Our Gang is running this country…consider the team effort during WW2 or the unbelievable accomplishment of going to the moon, as opposed to the stupid, half wits we elect in these times of devolution….our gov is mostly idiots…no direction, no sense of responsibility, no clue how to lead and think long term…these people see a huge pie on the table and drool over their slice….then they distance themselves and consider their re-election…if we are doomed, that’s why…it’s not Latinos or Catholics or Southerners…it’s all of us, it’s about celebrity

@ CzechRebel:
It’s ironic that The US is now the Leftist Marxist power and Russia is the Capitalist-Christian power. WTF happened?

I can remember Paul Harvey predicting this back in the 1980s and maybe even the 1970s. “The USA and the USSR will someday cross like ships in the night.” Not sure that is an exact quote.

But, I think the real answer is the difference between the people. Russia became a Christian country in 988. Although, still technically under Communism in 1988, Russia celebrated 1,000 years of Christianity. (Believe me, in 1988, I was laughing pretty hard.)

While the Soviets may have controlled the government and the propaganda machine, they never got to the hearts of the Orthodox Christian people of Russia. The kids got one story at school and a different one at home, from parents and grand parents.

Orthodox Christianity strives under oppression. It has for nearly 2,000 years. I have a good friend, born here in Dixieland, but living in Moscow since the late 1980s. I know even more people who have visited Russia. The Russian people are building churches like they are going out of style.

Can you honestly imagine the Christianity that we see in the US surviving three or four generations of atheist oppression?

my older sister used to gush over Elvis…she touched him, she has his sweat stained scarf, all the books, records and trips to Graceland…actually made me queezy and profoundly suspect….famous people are just people for whatever reason…I’ve known famous people and even they don’t understand it…we have to raise the bar in terms of quality leadership…we have to hold these people responsible…this celeb/pol worship angle is gonna kill us…stay focused

Won’t pass the House and I don’t think 3/4ths of the states will vote for an amendment to give Jerk the Wonder Prez a third term.

As for Biden, right now he’s a harmless “body with a grin behind it” – I don’t think 8 years of looking like everybody’s crazy Uncle Harold who iives in a shack in swamp is going to make him a more viable candidate. And I think in four years Bammy is going to be able to neutralize the Clintons – just like old BJ essentially neutralized the Goreacle – he didn’t want the schmuck to be President and didn’t campaign for him. Hildebeest is going to be thoroughly discredited as in over her head for the last four years that she’ll be climbing UP Niagra Falls trying to get the nomination.

I don’t know who else they have waiting in the wings are the moment – Steny Hoyer?

@ heysoos:
I remember the first time I met Gary Johnson.
I was standing next to him at the urinal in the men’s room of the Marriott in Albuquerque.

there you have it…pols take the stage just like actors or musicians…Mick Jagger is privately a very laid back guy, but he made up this stage persona that people dig and now he’s expected to always be this frantic, strutting bad boy…a timeless story…people see politics and elections in particular as entertainment…somebody needs to change that, which is why this Libyagate thing is so important…it’s reality vs fantasy

somebody needs to change that, which is why this Libyagate thing is so important…it’s reality vs fantasy

Unfortunately, I’ve seen too much of the inside of what passes for journalism today.

Had Nixon been a Democrat, there would have been very little difference in how Watergate was covered, because back then, it was all about ratings/circulation and scooping the competition. Even in the ’90s, there was still a lot of that. People forget that it was the NY Times that broke the Whitewater story.

Today, though, the national media are run by the same sort of left-wing ideologues who have taken over the Democratic Party. They’re essentially all part of the same cabal.

You aren’t going to see this story pushed hard by anyone but Fox News, which means that 80% of the public will at best ignore it, and at worst, completely disregard it as being a partisan plot.

<a href="#co_1117261" title="Go to comment of this @ bluliner10:
Maybe it will – just in time for high-speed rail in California to require a $10 billion a year subsidy for the 25 people that will ride it once a month.

The Democrats and Obama are screaming “mandate!” but I believe Obama got something like 7 million FEWER votes this time than last and barely eeked out a 1% margin of victory. Hell, that’s not a mandate. It’s more like a “margin of error.”

@ lobo91:
The Democrats and Obama are screaming “mandate!” but I believe Obama got something like 7 million FEWER votes this time than last and barely eeked out a 1% margin of victory. Hell, that’s not a mandate. It’s more like a “margin of error.”

Maybe they can just raise taxes on those that voted for Obama. Those of us did not vote for him can stay as we are and be exempt from Obamacare.

That’s how it used to be, as I recall. Top vote getter was President, second highest was Veep – I would assume the reasoning being that if the President died in office, his successor would have been the second most desired candidate in the election.

That’s how it used to be, as I recall. Top vote getter was President, second highest was Veep — I would assume the reasoning being that if the President died in office, his successor would have been the second most desired candidate in the election.

That’s how it used to be, as I recall. Top vote getter was President, second highest was Veep — I would assume the reasoning being that if the President died in office, his successor would have been the second most desired candidate in the election.

It was probably done in an effort to avoid factionalism—something that deeply concerned the Founders—and to attempt to foster national unity after the inevitable divisiveness of an election.

In a perfect world, the idea of the two opponents uniting after the contest for the good of the nation has an excellent sound; unfortunately, it is not a perfect world. It’s sort of reminiscent of the James Garner/Jack Lemmon film “My Fellow Americans,” in which two former presidents who deeply dislike each other learn respect for each other and each other’s views and come together on a unity ticket (after a series of adventures) for the good of the country.

Half a bill, half a bill,
Hundreds of billions,
To the fiscal cliff of Debt—
Now sixteen trillion.
“Forward!” Light Worker said,
“Charge what we want!” he said
On the fiscal cliff of Debt,
Now sixteen trillion.

“Forward!” Light Worker said
“Though we’re deeply in the red,
I’m doing what I said
When I thrilled millions:
The Treasury my “stash,”
Green energy plans rash,
Billions in crony cash,
Off the fiscal cliff of Debt,
Now sixteen trillion.”

“Regulate industry,
Depress the economy,
Create false scarcity,
Cut back oil drilling.
Let entitlements swell;
Make our defense a shell;
Into the jaws of Debt—
How great? no one can tell—
Now sixteen trillion.”

Flush’d down fed’ral programs,
Flush’d down his healthcare scam,
Threat’ning with the taxman
Any who would protest
His road to ruin.
Heedless and unafraid,
The press acting to aid
Dissimulation
His plans had long been laid
The land to do in;
The bill came back much more
Than sixteen trillion.

“Regulate industry,
Depress the economy,
Create false scarcity,
Cut back oil drilling.
Let entitlements swell—”
That’s how a nation fell,
Freedoms tossed down a well,
Into a maw of Debt
How great, no one can tell
All we know is that it’s
Now sixteen trillion.

Would we were as we were
Ere half the land preferred
Public trough swilling.
What a profound error
To let the Light Worker
Squander our trillions!